


rage of war

by Areiton



Series: heartsongs & soulmarks [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Drug Use, Female Tony Stark, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, MIT Era, Pre-Iron Man 1, Pre-Slash, Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Toni Stark - Freeform, soulmate tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-19 03:20:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22471021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: Maria sings to her, a three part harmony, the tune to an Italian lullaby.Jarvis is a low bass note, steady and comforting. Ana is a mischievous jingle that makes her giggle while she steals cookies.Howard--Howard is an ominous drumbeat, something fit for ancient battlefields and blood soaked swords, the drums ofwar.Her heart pounds, a familiar metallic whining harmony and sometimes, she wonders what it means, that she can answer such different songs.
Relationships: Edwin Jarvis & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark
Series: heartsongs & soulmarks [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616746
Comments: 16
Kudos: 99





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so.  
> This is gonna be a three or four part series, and this particular part is two or three chapters. Hopefully you like it!!

Antonia Elizabeth Stark is born with blank slate skin and metallic discordant harmony, balled up fists and a scream of rage in her throat. She’s tiny and furious and unblemished and Howard cradles her like she is precious, like she is everything he’s ever wanted and stares at all her unmarked skin, and thinks, with a ferocity to match her screams, _you are_ **_mine._ **

~*~ 

He dotes on her. 

Maria quietly despairs, as the little girl grows into a spoiled princess, dressed in arm baring silks, her legs pale and thin under gossamer skirts. Her skin is a taunt and a tease--and a promise, Maria knows, and she hides her grief and smiles when Toni comes running on pale little legs, pigtails bouncing and a wild grin on her lips. 

~*~ 

Her mother hums, when they sit in Toni’s bedroom and she brushes the little girl’s hair. It tugs at her, an answering song deep in her belly and Maria draws Toni into her lap. “That’s your resonance, _bambina_ ,” she murmurs. “All your life, you’ll hear it, hear people calling to you. And if you trust it--trust the song in your heart--your heart will never steer you wrong.” 

~*~ 

Maria sings to her, a three part harmony, the tune to an Italian lullaby. 

Jarvis is a low bass note, steady and comforting. Ana is a mischievous jingle that makes her giggle while she steals cookies. 

Howard--

Howard is an ominous drumbeat, something fit for ancient battlefields and blood soaked swords, the drums of _war._

Her heart pounds, a familiar metallic whining harmony and sometimes, she wonders what it means, that she can answer such different songs. 

~*~ 

Toni doesn’t ask about the marks on her mother’s skin, the shifting opalescent black that slips and snakes around her shoulders and throat like a living thing, an oil slick necklace. 

She doesn’t ask about the delicate fringe of pink and scarlet that slips down her father’s wrist and fingers, as dainty as a glove. 

Her skin is milky white and utterly pale, and--she knows--her father wants it that way. It’s why Jarvis wears gloves and Ana only ever pets her hair, why Maria is a quiet humming song but never wraps around her, not unless Toni is swathed in blankets and sleepy. 

Howard touches her, wraps a big hand around her shoulder and draws her onto his lap, his hands on her bare knees and catching around her wrists, guiding her hand when she reaches for his tools. 

It never amounts to anything--no black slick oil blossoms, and she cries about it, sometimes, in the dark of her room, aching to be held. 

~*~ 

Toni's first mark is an accident. She watches it bloom across her skin, while a familiar bass note beats steady and familiar hands sooth back her hair, and she sees _fear_ in Jarvis' eyes, a discordant note in a moment that sings prettier than any she's heard before. Her knee is red and skinned and shaded ocean blue, sunlit water on rocks. 

She stares at it and says, softly, "Howard can never know." 

~*~ 

Hope smiles and stands next to her, electric blue marks smeared on her father's wrist and Howard shouts and Hank rages back and when he leaves, it's with slamming doors and threats, a confused Hope dragged in his wake. 

Toni thinks she should feel guiltier than she does, sacrificing Hope to protect Jarvis. 

Howard tugs her into his lap and his big hand covers her knee, covers oceans washed into her skin, and she shivers as his drums beat angry at her skin. 

~*~ 

Her heart song is metal clashing and discordant, and it doesn't fit her mother, the sweet Italian lullabies of her childhood. It doesn't fit Ana's happy offtune hum. 

Sometimes, when they are still and quiet and the sound of the garden is bright around them, she listens to Jarvis' steady rhythm and thinks she almost fits next to him. 

~*~ 

She is dressed in silk and lace and smiles, dainty and sweet, from her father's side and she meets Peggy like that, skin bare and soul screaming metal and Peggy--

Peggy is a violent cymbal crashing, a demand for attention and respect, steel wrapped in beauty and skin layered in colors, and Toni _adores_ her. 

~*~ 

Howard teaches her the beat of war, steady and constant, the weapons that fuel it and how to make them better. 

Jarvis teaches her constancy, deep and unyielding as the ocean he painted into her skin, bass a throbbing note she sets her life to. 

Peggy teaches her to _stand_ , to demand what the world won't give, to wrap sharp edged words in pretty crimson smiles, to carve a place for her own song. 

Obadiah teaches her to. He teaches with oily smiles and snakecharmer song and lies twisted with charming smiles and eyes that _take._

He teaches her to be afraid. 

~*~ 

There are whispers, of course. She is a darling of the tabloids, brilliant and obscenely wealthy, and her skin is marked only once, and she walks with titans in sheer lace and gauze, dainy hands clad in lace gloves, and smiles, devilish and sharp. 

They whisper that she is soulless. 

They whisper that her heartsong is a warsong. 

They whisper that Howard’s hands, possessive and ever present on her skin, are _wrong_. 

They whisper about the ocean washed stone mark on her knee, smaller now than when she was little, whisper about who could have left it, whisper about the gloves she wears, the marks she has never given, whisper whisper whisper, and she smiles. 

She smiles, hides her hurt behind a pretty mask, a sheer dress donned like armor, and turns her brilliant mind to create a bomb so devastating it makes Obadiah look at her with respect, and Howard to smile with jealous pride. 

~*~ 

She fights with Howard, when she graduates at fourteen and turns her gaze to MIT. 

“It’s not necessary,” he snarls, slamming his drink down, and Maria flinches. 

Toni--Toni has always been very certain of her father’s affections. She’s a spun glass doll, a pretty piece of innovation, his greatest best work, and he has never been anything but careful with his own work. 

Howard might be jealous, might be protective and possessive, might see her as _property_ instead of his _child_ \--but he will never hurt her. 

“I _want_ it,” she says, simply. Throws herself into the chair across from him and crosses her knees. Ocean washed stone glimmers from her knee and he fixates on it, brief and predictable. “I want my degree, Howard. And then I’m yours and SI can use me however you decide.” She bargains because it’s not a loss--she’s belonged to SI and the future Howard and Obie will carve since she came screaming into the world. 

His eyes narrow and she knows that speculative look, has seen it mirrored in Obadiah’s eyes too often, and she smiles. 

She enrolls at MIT the next day and pushes her uncertain future to the side. 

~*~ 

She meets Rhodey when she blows up her second lab. She hasn’t been noticed yet--she isn’t Howard’s daughter, here, isn’t the socialite darling of the press, the brilliant celebrity genius--here she’s too young, too pretty, too female to be taken seriously. Rhodey notices--her or the explosion, but he notices. 

He drags her out of the lab, hands rough and gentle and burning against her skin, and he stares at her, all five feet, one inch of her in ratty jeans and an oversized, stained t-shirt, hair a tangled mess and face blackened with ash.

She isn’t sure which of them is more surprised, when he decides to keep her. 

~*~ 

Rhodey doesn’t ever ask about her skin, about the lack of marks on her. 

He doesn’t ever ask about her father and his possessive grip on the back of her neck, the way Stane lingers too close and demanding. He doesn’t ask about the way that Toni flinches away from Stane, or the jealous looks Maria gives her daughter, or the way she leans warm and safe into Jarvis, the way Jarvis watches, soft and steady and loving. 

He doesn’t ask a lot of things, but once. 

Once he sits next to her while she quizzes him on physics and he asks, “Can I touch you?” 

Something like regret flickers in her eyes and he takes a deep breath, and says, “Just here,” he taps the sole of her foot, wrapped in fuzzy ridiculous socks. “Just for us.” 

She smiles, then, and her metallic music swells a little, meets his smooth jazzy sax. 

~*~ 

She hides it, wears socks and heels and curls her feet under her when she perches on her bed and grins at her father and it’s a secret, the royal blue watercolor splashed across the soles of her feet, the steady ground she walks on. 

~*~ 

Rhodey carries her mark, a shimmering red like an explosion on his bicep, as bright and burning as a brand, and he never tells his mama or his friends, or even his CO where it came from. He carries her on his skin, a promise of family and friendship and trust, and when she throws herself into him, all pale beautiful skin and teasing eyes and gloved hands, he catches her and tucks her close, holds her safe, and ignores the furious glares from Howard. 

~*~ 

“He makes you happy,” Jarvis says, once. She sits next to him at MIT and they watch Rhodey weaving his way through the cafe, coming back to her side. 

“He loves me,” she says, simply. 

She’s been loved her entire life. A sad tragic love from her mother, a deep obsessive, _possessive_ love from her father, the steady safe love of Jarvis. 

Even Hope loved her, once upon a time. 

She is used to being loved, to being adored by strangers and those close to her. 

But Rhodey--

“He loves me and asks nothing in return,” she says and Jarvis smiles, small and pleased, the music in his soul swelling to meet her own. 

~*~

“Rhodey,” she whispers, and he presses closer to her. 

They’re gone, now. Her father and mother, Jarvis. And she’s left standing by their casket, the music of her world almost silent. 

She feels like a little girl again, alone and desperately wondering why she is so unloved. 

Rhodey presses closer to her, steady and strong and soothing, and she blinks dry eyes and wonders why she cannot cry. 

~*~ 

Toni falls apart, in the aftermath. With her heartsong screeching and unanswered, her skin bare but for the ocean marked on her knee and royal secret on her soles, and she is suddenly free of all of Howard’s strict rules and outlandish demands, and her skin is a canvas waiting to be marked. 

She fucks her way through the last semester at MIT and then through most of R&D at SI, and the socialite scene in New York, and she leaves in her wake glittering red explosions on the skin of her lovers, and she walks away unblemished, unmarked, and thinks that maybe she really is cursed to be alone. 

~*~ 

It doesn’t stop her. The press whispering, the one-night stands selling her stories to the tabloids, the Board’s disapproval and Obie’s hungry gaze. 

She doesn't care about any of it. The only thing that bothers her is when Rhodey watches her, eyes sad enough that she curls into his arms and whispers apologies, broken sobs, into his throat and his hands are heavy and warm and safe around her shoulders. 

"I worry about you, genius," he murmurs and she wants to tell him that he shouldn't. That she's _fine_.

She isn't. They both know it. 

Still. Rhodey is written into her heart and her soul, is the steady ground she walks on, and she hates the worry in his eyes, in his voice. 

“I’ll be good,” she promises. 

~*~ 

She doesn’t stop fucking and drinking away her grief, but she does go back to her workshop when Rhodey deploys, and turns her considerable intellect to _creation._

She codes and she builds and she shapes her first child, unwieldy and clumsy and _beautiful._ He hums at her, a whirring question punctuated by an inquisitive clack and it’s not a heartsong, because machines can’t _have_ heartsongs, but it sings to her, and she _loves_ him. 

~*~ 

“Oh, sweetheart,” Rhodey breathes, and she grins, some of her tension easing. 

Because that right there--it’s awe and pride. 

“I built him a brother,” she says shyly, and his gaze finds hers. “And something else.” 

She shows him the code, the lines and lines of it, the way it sprawls like a song, steady bass and electronic jazz and his eyes are bright and shiny when he stares at her, and she says, “His name is JARVIS.” 

~*~ 

Rhodey paints a metallic red explosion on DUM-E’s strut, on U’s base before he goes back to the Air Force, and she almost cries, when she sees it, her beautiful babies with her soulmark bright and claiming on their metal. DUM-E chirps at her, inquisitive and proud and she laughs through the tears and goes back to her coding. 

~*~ 

She meets Ty because of Obie. He's flitted on the edge of her awareness for years, another pretty face in a sea of faces, a brilliant and beautiful son of a tech company. 

She knew of him in the way she knew all the pretty blank faces at the endless galas. She knew of him in the way she knew the other rich brats snorting daddy's money off a hooker's tit in a club where nothing was forbidden. 

She knew of him. 

But the night she _met_ him--she was dry eyed and trembling in sheer crimson, a smile fixed fake on her lips and a headache building behind her eyes. 

Rhodey was a world away and Jarvis was in the ground and she was so lonely she _ached_ and Ty slipped, smiling and sweet, next to her and said, "You look horrible, darling."

Toni blinks at him and he stares back, a teasing smirk on his lips and a cup of coffee in his hand and she smiles.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the tags, lovelies. Full warnings in the end note.

She falls in a whirlwind. 

Ty is beautiful, attentive, brash and loud and _honest_ , a kind of honest she’s never had from anyone but Rhodey. 

She spends the rest of the gala at his side, and when he follows her to her car--she smiles, sweet and sharp and sends him, laughing on his way. 

She’s in his bed three days later, pale skin gleaming against dark skin, his mouth hot against her cunt, and her fingers digging crescents into her back. 

She comes for him, laughing and rides him with his hands pinned to the bed and a wicked smile on her lips and she’s _happy._

She never wants it to end. 

~*~ 

They take the city by storm. Beauty and wealth, they’re the darlings of the media, and Toni _adores_ it, for once thriving in the attention, leaning into Ty for kisses when the shutters click, dancing in clubs. She doesn’t fuck him anywhere they can be caught--but she lets his hand slip under her skirt on dance floors, lets him pin her against a shadowed wall at a charity gala, grinding a shattering orgasm out against his thigh, she blows him at an art opening, and every time they aren’t caught, she laughs, giddy and high. 

“I want you to go with me,” she tells him, and Ty looks at her, eyebrow arched. “I’m taking Rhodey to Venice for his birthday. I want you to come.” 

Ty kisses her. “Anything you want, darling.” 

~*~ 

Rhodey pulls her into his arms, his hands tight and claiming on her, and she laughs, a noise terrifyingly close to a sob, burrowing into his embrace, the sound of smooth jazz ringing in her ears and settling the pounding in her heart. 

“Missed you, baby girl,” he murmurs, and she hums, a happy little noise. 

As used to it as she is--there is nothing that can erase the ache in her heart, when Rhodey is far away, or replace the bone deep satisfaction, when he’s back at her side, where he belongs. 

A rough throat clearing makes her perk up, almost vibrating in Rhodey’s arms as she twists. Ty is standing to one side, a look on his face that she’s never seen before, something complicated and quietly displeased, and her smile dims, just a little, as she reaches for him. “Flyboy, I want you to meet Ty. My boyfriend.” 

“Tiberius Stone,” Ty says, his smile sharper than it is friendly and Rhodey--

Rhodey smiles, cool and calm, keeps Toni tucked against his side because he might not be dating her, might never date her--but he loved her first, and best, and always. 

“Good to meet you, Stone,” he says, and nudges Toni a little. “Where’d you get us rooms, peacock?” 

Toni grins up at him. 

~*~ 

Rhodey doesn’t like Tiberius. 

She watches, and it’s not overt--he isn’t rude, but he’s..watchful. He keeps her close and his gaze is a little cooler than she’d like, his hands heavy warm weights on her hips as they stroll through the streets, a hand across her waist when she curls against him in the hotel room, his mouth a familiar brush against her temple when she’s drifting to sleep. 

Ty doesn’t say anything, really, but his gaze is cool, and distant, and his smile is forced in a way she doesn’t like. 

The problem is that--she loves Rhodey. He’s half her soul, the steady ground under her feet, the strength at her back, steadying her when she stumbles. Since Jarvis died, he’s the only constant in her world. 

And no one--not even Ty with his mile-wide smile and drugging kisses--has ever come close to replacing him. 

“How serious is he?” Rhodey asks, when they wander alone, Ty left asleep in the hotel. 

“He’s fun,” she says, and shrugs. Smiles sharply and sad. “He hasn’t left a mark on me, if that means anything.” 

Rhodey squeezes her hand and she leans into him. 

“I got you, baby girl,” he murmurs. 

“I know,” she sighs. “You’re all I need.” 

His arms come around her, and he holds her close, fierce and protective. 

~*~ 

Rhodey holds her face in his hands in the private hanger, his forehead pressed into her's and the sound of smooth jazz and discordant metallic harmony fill up the world. She smiles at him and it stings, the way it always does when he leaves her. 

"Be good, genius," he murmurs and kisses her closed eyelids before he goes. 

~*~

Tiberius' heartsong is a sibilant whisper, soft and shushing. 

It's soothing at first. Calming to her own discordant harmony, a whispering song that she falls asleep to after he fucks her. 

It changes, though. It's still soft, whispering, but--after Venice, after Rhodey, it's sharp and jarring, harsh and insistent when she longs for comfort. 

It doesn't sing to her heartsong and his mark doesn't sink into her skin.

~*~ 

He gives her cocaine after a two day inventing binge, when she's stumbling exhausted and he's snapping inpatient, and she _wants_ to be what he wants--brilliant and beautiful and viciously alive. 

He gives her cocaine, and she hesitates for a second,a promise to Rhodey echoing in her mind, before she looks at him, coaxing and impatient and shining so damn bright it hurts.

The coke makes her feel _alive_ and she laughs, held against him in the club, her hair tickling against her back, her heartbeat so loud it reminds her of her father’s long dead war drums. 

~*~ 

She’s expecting it, when Rhodey calls. The pictures were on the front page of every tabloid in the States and Europe, and there was no way Rhodey, with his overprotective streak a mile wide, missed them, missed _her._

“Is this what you want?” Rhodey asks, because for all that he is protective, for all that he is her fiercest defender--he always ceeds to what she wants. 

“I love him, Rhodeybear,” she whispers, her voice tight and thick and he sighs. 

“I don’t want him hurting you,” Rhodey says. “And the drugs--baby--” 

“I don’t--it’s not a lot,” she says weakly. 

Rhodey’s silence is damning and she blinks back the tears in her eyes, touches the ocean washed pebbles on her knee and says, plaintive, “I miss you.” 

~*~ 

The first time Ty hits her, she thinks he’s finally left a Mark. 

Her face is a hot line of fire, a sensation she remembers, fleeting, from Jarvis, and steady on her feet, and she blinks at him, her mind spinning, and blood in her mouth and Ty is glaring at her, shaking her and she smiles, blood on her teeth and _hits back._

~*~ 

“He’s good for you,” Stane tells her and she blinks at her godfather. His hand is tight on her shoulder, a claiming touch so much like Howard’s that it makes her ache, for an endless moment, and she hates him almost as much as she loves him. “He makes you better.” 

She’s in a long dress today, a high collar and sleeves to her wrists, a skirt that flirts just below her knees. 

All her bruises are carefully covered, and the split in her lip healed--Ty doesn’t often hit her in the face. 

She stopped hitting back right around the first time him broke her wrist. 

“You keep this up, and Stark Industries will merge with Viastone and we’ll never have to worry again.” 

Her future, written in stone and blood and bruises. She smiles at her godfather, and itches to scream.

~*~ 

She still codes, sometimes. When her eyes are gritty and her fingers ache and Stone is passed out in her bed, and the drugs and booze aren’t enough to chase her demons away. 

She codes and she prays, and one night, she says, her voice a terrified whisper, “Are you there?” 

“Mistress?” JARVIS says, and she chokes on her sobs. 

~*~ 

She doesn’t tell Stone or Stane about JARVIS. 

She doesn’t tell Rhodey about the bruises, the way he sometimes locks her in their bedroom, about the nights she can’t remember and the ache in her body when she wakes. 

She doesn’t tell JARVIS that this isn’t love. 

~*~ 

“Sweetheart,” Rhodey whispers, and she curls a little deeper into his arms, her eyes burning. Stone is in Japan for two more weeks and she doesn’t _hurt_ for the first time in months, and Rhodey is _here_ and she wants so badly to cry she can feel it burning in her throat, all the screams she hasn’t voiced. “Baby, what happened to you?” he whispers, and his voice is full of the pain she’s lived. 

She doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t press--just scoops her into his arms and carries her to bed, detouring to his own bedroom only when Toni makes a choked, hurt noise. 

He curls around her, all broad muscle and strength, his skin dark against hers and his eyes bright in the darkness, and she loves him, so much that it _hurts_. 

~*~ 

She doesn’t tell him. 

Toni doesn’t think she’d _ever_ tell Rhodey what Ty did. She doesn’t want him to know, doesn’t want him to look at her differently--and she knows he would. 

Anyone would. 

She doesn’t tell him. 

JARVIS does. 

She wakes, slowly, her body loose and comfortable, and she stretches luxurious, almost purring in her pleasure at being back in Rhodey’s arms, and it’s only when she presses against him that she notices his tension. 

It’s only when she blinks up at him that she notices his fury. 

“Honeybear?” she asks, scared, and he looks at her. 

“Toni, what the fuck?” 

She blinks and the pictures---her, her and Ty, her bruises and tears and those nights she can’t remember--are all painted in digital color on the walls, splashed there by JARVIS. 

“Fuck,” she whispers. 

~*~ 

“You leave. Or I’ll kill him,” Rhodey says. “I want to kill him anyway, but you’ll sulk if I go to jail--so this is your option. But he’s never gonna touch you again.” 

“James,” she says, the name she never uses for him and he shakes his head.  
“That’s not gonna work this time, baby girl.” He’s calm, the eye of a raging storm, but she can see it, in the shake of his hands and the fury in his eyes. “You deal with this. Or I do.” 

“It’s not simple,” she says, and she feels her wrist twinge, the way it does now, after Ty broke it. She doesn’t even remember why, now. 

“It is,” Rhodey says. “You leave him--or I will kill him.” 

She stares at him, the metallic red explosion on his shoulder, the rage burning in his eyes for her, the smooth jazz that steadies her. 

And she nods. 

~*~ 

The thing is--she knows that Tiberious wasn’t good for her. 

She knows the blood and bruises and lost nights, the insults and heavy claiming hand on the nape of her neck, the way he hated her heartsong and soulmarks, the way she flinched away from him--the drugs. 

It was all dangerous and unhealthy. 

She _knows_. 

But when she changes the access codes and he stalks away, not bothering to scream, his parting words ringing in her ears-- _you’re alone, Toni. You always will be. No one wants an unmarked freak with war in her song.--_ she makes it three steps from the door before she crumples and _sobs._

~*~ 

Rhodey calls, every night. 

He stays on the phone with her for hours, so much longer than is safe, and she hates herself for being so distracting, hates herself for being the reason he has black circles under his eyes, but she needs him too much to tell him to go. 

She clings to him, and he smiles into the phone, his voice a quiet rumble from a world away and it helps. 

It helps, until it goes wrong. 

~*~ 

“Ms. Stark?” 

“Yeah. How’d you get this number--only three people have this number.” 

“It was listed as Lt. Col. Rhodes emergency contact, ma’am.” 

She stumbles and falls, and she can hear JARVIS shouting distantly, but she doesn’t actually hear that, she just hears-- _war drums and metallic explosions and a discordant metallic whine and_

“-am? Ma’am, are you there?”

“Yeah,” she rasps, her throat raw. “Yeah--where--is he--” 

“He’s being taken to Germany. If they can stabilize him, he’ll be transported to the States.” 

“I’ll be there in twelve hours,” she says, and there’s a hiccup of hesitation on the line. 

She hangs up before they can argue, and in the ensuing silence, she _screams._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Toni is in a steadily declining relationship with an abusive partner. There are drugged blackouts, non-explicit abuse, and implied rape (during the blackouts). Be safe reading.


	3. Chapter 3

She storms into the hospital, elegant and untouchable in a power suit and three inch heels. Toni learned at her mother’s knee and her Aunt Peggy’s, that the right outfit, hairstyle and lipstick opened a lot of doors. She didn’t always flaunt that knowledge and ability to capitalize on it--but right now, she wanted every door between her and Rhodey blown open. 

She storms into the hospital, and there’s a moment, a brief moment, when a nurse and a doctor try to slow her progress, try to barr her from Rhodey’s side. 

She bares her teeth and snarls, “I’m listed as his next of kin and emergency contact. Even if I couldn’t  _ buy  _ this hospital with the snap of my fingers if that’s what it took to get me to his side--you have no legal right to keep me from him.” 

“Ms. Stark--” 

“Don’t,” she whispers. “Don’t say a word. Just let me go.” 

“Let her in,” a weary voice says and she stumbles, then, her heels almost going out from under her as she takes in the strained, exhausted face of Roberta Rhodes. 

“Mama,” she breathes and lets the woman draw her into a hug. She clings and Mama’s hands smooth over her hair and her back, and she tuts a little. “Skinny,” she huffs. 

“Mama,” Tony hiccups, swallowing her sob because it’s not the time, not the place, Mama has  _ enough _ to deal with. 

“Go on in, honey. He’s been waitin’.” 

He’s sleeping, when she slips in, his mouth opened a little. His left arm and leg are in a cast, and she knows his ribs are broken--he came down on his left side. He’s lucky he walked away with only a shattered arm and leg. There was internal bleeding, but they’ve gotten that taken care of--

She breathes, slows hers to match Rhodey’s and clasps his hand in hers. 

He huffs a little, curls closer in his sleep, and she finally,  _ finally _ cries. 

~*~

"How'd this happen?" she asks. Rhodey is sleeping and she's hesitant to wake him, even though Mama says he'd want her to. She's not going anywhere, and she'd rather he sleep, heal,  _ rest _ , than fuss over her. 

He will. 

Even as he lays in a hospital bed and she sits unharmed at his side, he'll fuss. 

Her toes curl in her shoes, a tic she knows and has no desire to break. She doesn't reach for Jarvis' mark on her knee--but no one can see her toes curling into Rhodey's mark, a soothing reminder that he's tied to her, marked into her skin. 

His soothing jazz is steady and she blinks up at Mama. "What  _ happened _ ?"

"Guided missile," Mama says, flat and unemotional. "Shot him out of the sky. He got out--but even with the 'chute, it wasn't an easy landing. 

Getting shot out of the sky wasn't easy, either. 

Her hands tighten into fists, tucked under her thighs--sitting on her hands is all that's keeping her from reaching for him again. 

"That shouldn't happen," she mutters and Mama snorts. It snaps Toni's attention up. "We shouldn't be putting our pilots at risk, not like that." 

"War is risk, little girl," Mama says, bluntly and Toni's lips tighten. 

"I'm gonna fix it," she says, grimly. 

~*~ 

She calls Stane. It takes a few days--Rhodey wakes and she can't be pried away from him by a goddamn meteor, much less a phone call to her godfather with his heavy hands and probing eyes. 

Rhodey's hand tightens around hers, anytime she goes quiet and distant, and she knows she's worrying him, but she can't help brooding. 

This shouldn't have happened. 

Her Rhodey should  _ never _ be hurt, not while she could do  _ something _ to prevent it. 

She calls Stane, and tells him, “I want a report on everything the weapons department is doing.” 

“Toni, sweetheart,” he starts. 

“This isn’t a request,” she snaps, the fury that’s been a banked fire in her since that fucking phonecall  _ finally _ raging unchecked. “Do it by morning or I’ll find someone who will.” 

There’s a tense silence and she thinks this is it. The moment when Stane’s growing resentment will break. She’s surprised it hasn’t yet. 

“Of course, Toni,” he says instead, a smile wide and fake in his voice and she relaxes. 

As much as she is expecting it, she isn’t quite ready to deal with the fallout. Not right now, not when her attention is focused so thoroughly on Rhodey. 

“How long will you be there?” Obie asks, and she closes her eyes, and lets herself be swept up in business, if only for a moment. 

~*~ 

She spends long hours while Rhodey sleeps reading the specs for weapons and body armor, for the stealth fighters SI is designing and the armored vehicles. She scours the details on the guns and the grenades, the ammo. 

Then she opens up JARVIS on her phone, and she makes it  _ better.  _

~*~ 

She’s got the schematics for a missile pulled apart on her laptop when Rhodey nudges her. “You should take a break.” 

Toni smiles at him, tucks it away and climbs into bed with him, carefully curling around him. Her palm fits to the metallic explosion on his shoulder, and she presses the soles of her feet to his shin, sighing a little when his lips brush her hair. “You’re workin’ too hard, baby girl.” 

“I’m practically on vacation,” she protests. 

“This isn’t what you want to do,” he says gently and she sighs. 

It’s true. She’s never wanted to be a weapons designer. She wants to build learning AI’s and clean energy, wants to innovate the future. 

She presses further into his side. “What if I could invent something to make sure this never happens again,” she says, hoarsely. “Do you think I wouldn’t?” 

“I think you can’t,” Rhodey says and she stiffens in indignation. “Peacock, you can do a lot of things--but you can’t put me in a bubble and keep me safe. No more than I can do that for you.” 

She’s quiet, stubbornly so, for a long moment, and then she presses herself, careful of his injuries, to his side. “I can damn well try,” she says, grimly. 

Rhodey laughs, and it’s to that noise, familiar against her chest, mixing with her discordant metallic music and his soothing jazz, she closes her eyes and lets herself drift. 

~*~ 

She stays there, at his side, until the Air Force deems him healthy, sends him home half pieced together with a six month leave. She stays until Rhodey leaves, and takes him home with her, puts him in his room in her Malibu mansion, and goes to her workshop. 

“J, open a new project,” she says. 

“What shall I call it, madam?” 

She closes her eyes, and she can hear a discordant metallic whine, can see the red explosions she leaves on other people’s skin. She curls her toes, the steady grounding royal blue watercolor the only thing to break through the walls and walls around her. 

“Jericho,” she says. 

~*~ 

She carries his mark on her skin, the only mark she ever she reached for with intent and hope burning in her heart, the only mark she gave with  _ forever _ singing in her veins. 

He’s her steady ground, the solid rock in her ever twisting world. 

“You don’t have to build these, sweetheart,” he tells her, staring at the bombs she’s designing, the bombs she never wanted to build.

“You’re not my soulmate,” she says, and Rhodey goes still, because they have never talked about this. “But you  _ are _ half my heart, James. You’re my brother and I would damn my soul a thousand times over to keep you safe.” 

“Tony,” he whispers, and she smiles, brilliant and defiant. 

~*~ 

She goes to galas and charity dinners and clubs and her skin is gold touched cream and clear and she leaves a metallic red explosions in her wake, but she doesn’t mind so much. Rhodey is hers and she is his, and SI is revolutionizing weapons and when he flies, she knows he’s as safe as she can make him. 

It isn’t enough. It will never be enough, not unless he’s at her side, safe and whole and far from danger, his jazz soothing and familiar in her ear. 

He doesn’t want that, has  _ never _ wanted that from her and she loves him, far too much to offer or insist. 

She builds bombs and coats her hands red, and smiles for the cameras, and never once regrets it, because he’s safe. 

He’s as safe as she can make him. 

~*~ 

He shows up in her workshop when she’s thirty-five, and she blinks at him, and the bottle of scotch. 

“You didn’t have to,” she says, and he shrugs. He doesn’t, but no one else will. Ms. Potts doesn’t mention the date at all, and the rest of the world seems intent on shoving it down her throat, and only Rhodey was  _ there _ , when the call came and the world ended. 

He sits next to her while she drinks, and tuck her into bed, and when he kisses her, it’s different than the casual intimacy, the platonic affection that’s never dipped into  _ more. _

This kiss--a gentle brush of his lips against hers, the touch of his tongue, his hands heavy on her hips--it’s all  _ asking _ , a question that she’s never asked. 

He’s offering, himself, this one piece of them that they’ve never crossed, never shared. 

For a moment--one endless moment when the taste of him still lingers on her lips--she wants it. She wants  _ him, _ a greedy craving to keep him, hoard every piece of Rhodey and make it her own. 

Her toes curl and she pulls back, just a little, his heartsong familiar and soothing and that aching right wrong discordant note. 

“Baby girl?” Rhodey says, softly. 

“I don’t--I love you. I love you more than anything, Rhodey. But you’re not one of the people I throw away.” 

His expression goes gentle and he smiles at her, and the room  _ shifts.  _ His kiss is a familiar brush, his hands protective and possessive, and his eyes are soft and warm the way she knows down to her toes. 

“You know I don’t need that from you,” she says, anxious. “You and me--we’re more than sex. We’re forever.” 

He smiles at her, and drags her the scant few inches that separate them, breathing in her hair while she burrows into his side. “I know, baby girl. Always and forever.” 

She smiles and falls asleep there, lulled by a two part harmony that sings out of tune, and the steady beat of his heart. 

~*~ 

She curls next to him on the plane, and he pets her hair with absent minded affection, and the thing is—she’s happy. 

She’s with Rhodey and SI is on top of the industry, and Stane let’s her develop whatever she wants as long as she hands over bombs to keep the military happy, something she’s never hesitated to do, if it meant keeping Rhodey safe. 

She’s happy and his heartsong is soothing and familiar and it’s not hers, he isn’t hers, not the way the world says they should be. 

She carries two marks—ocean washed pebbles on her knee and royal blue watercolor splashed on the soles of her feet and she litters the world with metallic red explosions, and she doesn’t care because Rhodey is at her side, and she’s never needed more than that.

~*~ 

Yinsin’s heartsong is a high clear whistle, a three part tune--a goatherd’s whistle, and she loves it. It sings across the cave, wraps around and calls to her, when panic and pain drive every thought from her head, holds her when Raza’s men beat her and warbles across the water when they shove her under. 

It is shrill and insistent and steady, when they come in the night, with heavy bruising hand and  _ take.  _

She clings to that song, that three part tune, and when he wraps an arm around her shoulder, sheltering and protective and warm, he leaves behind a swell of leaves, shiny and green. She stares at them, curling over her shoulders, when Yinsin is sleeping, and she  _ loves him. _

~*~ 

They want her to build for them. She listens, and her heart beats harder, harder, staring at boxes of her weapons, at the weapons she built to protect  _ Rhodey _ and she doesn’t know if he’s alive, and these bastards who  _ hurt _ her, who  _ raped _ her, want to take what she only ever  _ gave _ , and she trembles. 

She lets them  _ see _ , let’s them think she trembles in fear, and she  _ shakes _ with fury. 

~*~ 

Her heart song is metallic discordant harmony, a song she’s never understood and has done her best to recreate, and she never has. 

She’s never known what it  _ means. _

But as she stands wreathed in fire and the echoing silence where Yinsin’s whistle should be, while her captors scream around her and her heartsong  _ swells, _ deafening and pounding in her ears, she recognizes it. 

It’s war. 

It’s  _ rage _ . 

She burns them, burns them  _ all _ , and she flies away, and falls screaming from the sky and walks, aching and broken and  _ mad as hell _ for three days before Rhodey drops out of the sky and pulls her to safety, and even that. 

Even Rhodey. 

Does nothing to quite the rage of war in her heart. 

She thinks, flying home, to a life she doesn’t recognize, her brother at her side, she thinks nothing will. 

~*~ 

He wakes, cold and pain and a song of war filling up the air. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of the series will be coming soon!


End file.
